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The 21st Century Music Curriculum- Why Guitar?

In her keynote speech at Vision 2020: The Housewright Symposium on the Future of Music Education held at Florida State University in 1999, composer Libby Larson shared the story of her daughter’s experience playing saxophone in middle school band. “By the end of her second year in band,” Larson lamented, “the music in her was so stifled by the pedagogy of the curriculum that she quit. I noticed that almost every other musically gifted child also quit.” She went on to explain that, “More and more, our students come to us as individuals, passionate about music and hungry to investigate their passion. More and more, these students bring customized repertoires along with them and often these repertoires include music which cannot be examined or taught easily using methodology derived from the study of classical repertoire.” She concluded with a series of questions, the last of which summed up the primary challenge she anticipated music educators would face in the first two decades of the 21st century: “How do we reconcile our central curriculum, which depends on the Western notated tradition, with the growing need and demand for high pedagogical curriculum and standards for non-notated music?”

Larson’s challenge proved prescient; who could have predicted the rapid pace of technological development – development that has altered and disrupted both the way today’s youth experience, create, and consume music, and the ways teachers approach their craft? Eighteen years on, Ms. Larson’s questions–and challenge–remain; how should music educators respond?

In a 2016 article, Clint Randles, Assistant Professor of Music Education at the University of South Florida, pointed out “Much of the music that adolescents listen to is created digitally and produced through software, keyboards, touchpads, guitars and drum kits. However, music in the schools is based on conservatory models of musical transmission with roots in Western European art music.” He goes on to argue, “Music classes do not offer what most students want to learn.” Indeed, as Rob Pethel discussed in his 2016 doctoral dissertation, recent research suggests that enrollment in band, orchestra, and chorus is in decline, while enrollment in non-traditional music classes such as piano, guitar, and music technology is increasing. Pethel estimates that there are 5,000 to 6,000 schools in the US that offer some type of guitar instruction, but, in many cases, the instructors responsible for teaching those classes have little to no experience teaching or playing guitar. Often, their challenge lies in developing a cohesive course of study that acknowledges the guitar’s vast and varied repertoire and pedagogical traditions, many of which exemplify those alluded to by Larson. Here are a few things for non-guitarist music educators to consider when developing a guitar program:

Image 1: Robinson Guitar students warm up prior to a competition in San Francisco, CA.

I. What does it mean to be a “literate” guitarist? Reading traditional music notation is an essential skill for guitarists, but playing single-line melodies at sight has limited application for guitarist; they must also understand how to read chord diagrams, and understand how to infer appropriate accompaniment styles for a given piece. Additionally, a significant amount of guitar repertoire is non-notated; students must develop the aural skills necessary to learn riffs and progressions by ear, and be familiar with and able to decipher nontraditional music notation system such as guitar tablature.

II. The guitar is a wonderful vehicle for teaching improvisation. It is a common instrument in both blues and jazz, and improvisation is an organic element in both styles of music. There are many approaches to teaching improvisation on the guitar; one approach is to help students identify “target tones” that are part of the underlying chord structure, and then connect those tones using scale passages and arpeggios.

III. Classical guitar music is beautiful, but it is only one tradition among a rich variety of music traditions that include guitar. While it is tempting to dismiss contemporary pop music as unworthy of inclusion in “serious” academic music programs, it is a good bet that most high school students were thinking “Miley,” not “Mozart,” when they enrolled in guitar. There are many musical skills that can be addressed by teaching students to play contemporary pop songs. In the podcast Switched on Pop, Charlie Harding and Fordham University Musicology professor Nate Sloan regularly discuss the hidden complexity of current pop songs; their discussions are a great classroom resource!

IV. The students who walk into your classroom are taking a risk! As a veteran public school music teacher with 27 years of classroom guitar instruction, I am acutely aware that the students who opt to take my guitar class have had multiple opportunities to study an instrument in school before they come to me, and they chose not to; for whatever reason, they chose guitar. It is my responsibility to reward that risk with a positive educational experience- to meet the students where they are- to be patient- and to validate any prior musical experiences and knowledge they have.

Image 2: James W. Robinson Jr. HS Guitar Ensemble prior to their performance at the US Department of Education.

V. Finally, as music teachers, we have the power to ensure that music will be a part of our students’ lives for the rest of their lives; we also have the power to ensure that the students who come to us leave our programs believing that music is not for them. I am convinced that the traditional band/orchestra/chorus performance programs, which have provided students with opportunities to experience the rich heritage of Western European art music through performance, will continue to do so far into the future. I am equally convinced that carving out space in school music programs for a new population of students- students who are interested in engaging with new types of music in new ways- will enhance our programs, and provide relevant opportunities for a new population of young musicians eager to nurture and feed their passion for music.

Featured image: “Music in the sky” by tanakawho. CC by 2.0 via Flickr.

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Finding reliable information on Latin America in the Internet flood

Recent political rhetoric filled with such hot button words as “drugs,” “immigrants,” “the Wall,” and “terrorists” serves in place of diplomacy that represents the interests of the United States while remaining respectful toward other nations. This blather is the result of loose-lipped politicians who prefer media quips to thoughtful commentary about policy. Although the United States is a leading producer, a desired location, and a major, if not the greatest, market, these politicians are not using the wealth of knowledge available to push the United States toward progress. Rather than raise questions that could lead to meaningful solutions, many of the nation’s leaders for the most part prefer the far easier approach of grandstanding.

While the nation’s political leaders focus their energy on showboating, it is important for citizens to remain informed. For anyone concerned, or just curious, about topics that hit close to home, such as events happening south of the border, there exist outstanding sources of information almost completely ignored by policy makers. For anyone seeking reliable information, complication comes from the information and misinformation deluge caused by Google and other computer search engines. Is there an ark in this flood? Yes, and many of the Noahs who created it are practitioners of Latin American studies. These are not policy wonks, but individuals skilled in asking questions, analyzing responses, and crafting conclusions. The results are usually accessible, often free from jargon, and intended to elucidate a problem, issue, or difficulty—provided their results are published as books, articles, or encyclopedia entries either in print or online, because this means the research and analysis has been vetted by peer reviewers. Moreover, publishers are committed to communicating with the professional, student, and, preferably, general public. While television, radio, and newspaper reporters provide sound bites, authors of published works must be serious and to consult them readers must be serious—this seriousness is defined as a willingness to invest some time and thought to the process.

Something that requires a willing attitude and time investment does not have to be dull, pedantic, or boring.

Something that requires a willing attitude and time investment does not have to be dull, pedantic, or boring. Rather it most often leads to fascinating discoveries with practical applications. Mexicans have created an electoral democracy without solving the issues of corruption, the rule of law, and, personal security. Roderic Camp has written about this and related it to migration issues. The role of such critical individuals as Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas has also been scrutinized. Other pertinent topics include human rights and student movements, social media and political organizing, and in the process reveal the secret to excellent fish tacos, music of religious practices, social media and youth politics. These are all topics that directly or indirectly reveal a good deal about Mexico and that must be understood to develop reasonable formal relations between the United States and the neighboring government.

Interested individuals can also search out major research centers. For example, the Mexico Institute, a part of the Woodrow Wilson Center, located only blocks from the White House and the Capitol, has published recent studies on violence, corruption, and democratization and hosted roundtable discussions of outstanding experts on topics such as NAFTA, drugs, and migration. Under the capable leadership of Duncan Wood, the Mexico Institute addresses major issues involving the United States and Mexico; these are discussed, video-streamed, and published for anyone, including policy makers, who are interested. This is but one of the sources of reliable, thoughtful discussion of contemporary issues. Other such institutes exist for Latin America and other parts of the world.

Reliable information can provide the reader with a life boat in the ocean of tweets, websites, and internet sources that often represent nothing more than the screed of individuals with a keyboard and a desire to shout. Some persons prefer video to text, and judicious searches for respected investigators lead to presentations on YouTube and other video-streaming services. Certainly a little commitment will pay dividends for the interested individual. Sports fans provide a valuable example. Many astonished fans addicted to Latin American sport have sorted through Internet advertisements and half-baked websites to locate reliable information on Paris Saint-Germain because Brazilian soccer star Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior has moved there from Barcelona. Following the travels of sensational players provides an example of the patience and skill needed for anyone who wants to understand the politics and economics of Latin American nations, often confronted by U.S. governmental policies, within the high tide of internet sources.

Featured Image Credit: 1744 Map of America titled “A NEW and ACCURATE MAP of AMERICA.” drawn by Emmanuel Bowen. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

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The House Appropriations Committee and the Johnson Amendment

The Committee on Appropriations of the US House of Representatives, in a so-called rider to the pending federal budget bill, has proposed significant procedural restrictions on the IRS’s ability to enforce the Johnson Amendment. The Johnson Amendment is the provision of the Internal Revenue Code which prevents all tax-exempt institutions (including churches) from participating in political campaigns. The Committee’s budget rider is the most recent salvo in the ongoing dispute about churches and politics.

The Appropriations Committee proposes that the Johnson Amendment only be enforced against a church if three tests are all met: first, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue must agree that the church in question has engaged in political campaigning. Second, thirty days after making a determination of forbidden church campaigning, the Commissioner must notify the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee that such a determination has been made. Third, the effective date of any such determination must be delayed for at least 90 days after the Commissioner’s notification to these two congressional committees.

The evident intent animating this proposed budget rider is to impede enforcement of the Johnson Amendment against churches. The Committee’s rider falls short of President Trump’s pledge to “get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment.” However, if it becomes law, this rider would extend heightened procedural protections to churches potentially running afoul of the Code’s ban on political campaigning by tax-exempt organizations.

The Appropriation Committee’s proposed budget rider is simultaneously too broad and too narrow. The proposed rider provides special procedural protections against all IRS enforcement of the Johnson Amendment as to churches. This cuts too broadly as not all enforcement of the Johnson Amendment is the same. Churches and other religious congregations should not become conduits for sending tax-deductible funds to political campaigns. In this respect, the proposed rider goes too far, giving churches procedural protection for any type of political campaign intervention, regardless of how blatant that intervention might be.

Suppose, for example, that an individual donates to a church with the understanding that the church will funnel that money to a particular candidate. This is behavior no one should favor, yet the Committee’s budget rider, if it passes through, would hinder the IRS from enforcing the Johnson Amendment in this compelling situation. In this context, the proposed rider goes too far, inhibiting enforcement of the Johnson Amendment when vigorous enforcement is appropriate.

But, in terms of internal church discussions, the Committee’s rider is too narrow. The proposed rider does not go far enough in protecting the legitimate rights of religious institutions and their personnel to speak on issues of public policy.

Churches are legitimately concerned that the Johnson Amendment improperly constrains their internal congregational communications. As the IRS currently interprets the Johnson Amendment, the “issue advocacy” of a church or its clergy may cost the church its tax-exempt status. If, for example, a minister delivers a sermon for or against DACA or for or against the Trump Administration’s travel ban, that sermon may cost the church its tax-exempt status if the IRS determines that DACA or the travel ban has been “a prominent issue in a campaign that distinguishes the candidates.”

If it becomes law the Appropriations Committee’s budget rider, while it would erect procedural barriers, would ultimately not protect this church’s tax-exempt status from revocation for such legitimate internal speech on public policy.

The best solution is not the kind of procedural band-aid proposed by the Appropriations Committee. Congress should instead modify the Johnson Amendment to protect internal church communications from all IRS scrutiny. With churches’ rights of free expression thus protected from government interference, the Johnson Amendment should, so modified, remain on the books to preclude the use of all tax-exempt institutions (including churches) to divert tax-deductible resources to political campaigns.

Featured image credit: church pews benches by pixel2013. Public domain via Pixabay.

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An American Kaiser?

Does any of the following sound familiar?

When he was young, his mother remarked that “he talks for the sake of his own voice, without making any effort whatsoever to think or to express a particular thought.”
By his teenage years, he had developed “a superiority complex—a brittle, narcissistic amour propre [self-love] combined with an icy coldness and an aggressive contempt for those he considered weaker than himself.”
His best friend wrote that he “becomes sullen unless he is given recognition from time to time by someone of importance.”
Installed as the leader and self-proclaimed “sole master” of policy of his nation, he declared that “we are destined for greatness, and I shall lead you to glorious days.” But one of his diplomats lamented his “almost crass ignorance” of foreign affairs, and the wife of another diplomat complained that he “is ruining our political position and making us the laughing-stock of the world!”
A foreign leader thought his communications reflected “the workings of a disordered brain.”

If you were thinking Donald Trump, you may be interested to know that these quotations are from historian John Röhl’s biography of Wilhelm II, the German Kaiser who led his country over the cliff into the abyss of World War I. Reading Röhl’s work two years ago while writing a book on the psychology of war, I felt as though I was reading about the candidate then trying to overturn traditional Republican politics.

Despite differences in historical era and social background, the Kaiser who ruled Germany from 1888 to 1918 and the American president who parlayed a real-estate empire into electoral (if not popular) victory displayed remarkably similar temperament. As Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen suggested, “Germany used to have a leader like Trump,” adding that “it’s not who you think.”

Comparing the 45th president of the United States to the defeated and deposed German Kaiser is more serious—and ominous—than a diverting party game.

Some parallels are obvious: verbal bombast, childish language, flamboyant and erratic behavior, a bullying interpersonal style that masks anxiety about weakness (recall Trump’s telephone lament that “I will be seen as a weak and ineffective leader in my first week”), and views that changed by the day—or even the hour—often in response to the last person talked to. Overall, what is presented is a sense of “Napoleonic supremacy” involving a “dangerous susceptibility to sycophantic flattery and backstairs intrigue.”

The similarity even extends to body narcissism focused on hands. Kaiser Wilhelm went to great lengths to conceal his withered left arm (the result of a traumatic breech birth). After Marco Rubio’s claim taunt that “you know what they say about men with small hands,” Trump counter-attacked with an implicit boast about the size of his genitals: “He referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.” In an interview two weeks later, he perseverated about his hands for more than six hundred words.

Kaiser Wilhelm, too, indulged in his own early 20th century version of Twitter storms—scribbling bizarre, hasty, and often xenophobic comments in the margins of diplomatic telegrams and reports. For example, when Austria-Hungary presented its harsh ultimatum to Serbia in July 1914 (a major step toward the outbreak of war), Wilhelm commented: “How hollow the whole so-called Serbian power is proving itself to be; thus it is seen to be with all Slavic nations! Just tread hard on the heels of that rabble!” Later he dismissed British Foreign Secretary Grey’s efforts to mediate the crisis with contempt: “Grey is a false dog who is afraid of his own cheapness and false policy.” And when Italy withdrew from its alliance with Germany at the beginning of the war, he railed against the Italian king: “Scoundrel! In spite of his written compact!”

Comparing the 45th president of the United States to the defeated and deposed German Kaiser is more serious—and ominous—than a diverting party game. For all his bluster, Wilhelm became increasingly ambivalent as the July 1914 crisis descended into world war; yet he went along with his generals, and so lost control of the whirlwind he had set in motion. The war descended into stalemate and slaughter, Wilhelm became a figurehead, and Germany was effectively controlled by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff. They pursued the chimera of victory until their forces practically disintegrated, leaving them no choice but to ask for an armistice, even as they denied defeat with the myth of a “stab in the back.”

Two days before that armistice, Wilhelm abdicated and escaped to asylum in the Netherlands. During the remaining 23 years of his life, he “descended into a nightmare of violent paranoia” and rabid anti-Semitism, “obsessed with the idea that satanic machinations had been at work to destroy him.”

William’s controller of the household had confided to his diary ten years earlier, quoting the biblical Ecclesiastes, “Woe to the country that has a child for King!”

Featured image credit: Kaiser generals. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Love, Madness, and Scandalous Women in Politics [timeline]

In Love, Madness, and Scandal, author Johanna Luthman chronicles the life of Frances Coke Villiers, Viscountess of Purbeck. Forced by her father into marrying Sir John Villiers; the elder brother of royal favorite, the Duke of Buckingham; Frances then fell for another man, Sir Robert Howard. While her husband succumbed to mental illness, she gave birth to Robert’s child. The scandal shocked the royal court. Despite her in-laws attempts to bring her down, Frances refused to bow to the combined authority of her family, her church, or her king. She fought stubbornly to defend her honor, as well as the position of her illegitimate son. Villiers joins a long line of women in history whose love lives have been forever tied to political scandal and their various aftermaths.

Featured Image Credit: 021 by Siddhesh Mangela. Public Domain via Flickr. 

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Kate Chopin, the “mother-woman”

Kate Chopin married at 20 years old and birthed six children within nine years. The Awakening, which she published in 1899, is arguably written to reject that an artist’s offspring would presume to occupy the first line to any discussion of her work. Her novella’s main character, Edna Pontellier, shocked Chopin’s readers by declaring her “self” separate from her maternal role:

“I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself.” (p 53)

And so forgive me, Kate. But it is her lived experience, as a mother-writer who so profoundly expressed the conflicts of occupying that duality, which drew me as the editor of a magazine committed to sharing the diverse experiences of motherhood, to re-read this classic text. The incredible truth is that our contemporary society remains astonished that women dare to express disinterest in bearing children, to say nothing of the extreme taboo around motherhood regret. Writers and artists who choose to openly discuss or engage their experiences as parents in their work also find themselves marginalized. Yet for many, as Shanthi Sekaran writes, “the relationship between motherhood and writing feels both essential and impossible…what do we desire most as writers, but to say something true and memorable about being human? Having children has wired me to the pulse of creation.”

Chopin was not what we would consider an activist in her own time. “She was not a social reformer. Her goal was not to change the world but to describe it accurately, to show people the truth about the lives of women and men in the nineteenth-century America she knew,” explains the Kate Chopin international Society.  Yet, The Awakening was later embraced by the modern women’s movement in the 60s and 70s as a nascent feminist text, an inspiration to hold sacred our identity and minds, liberated from the constraints of the wife/mother. “I have gotten into a habit of expressing myself. It doesn’t matter to me, and you may think me unwomanly if you like,” Edna tells her lover.

That lover (not her only), Robert, ultimately fails Edna as much as the other men who dominate in her life, not simply by leaving her but seeming to no longer see her, when she isn’t simply a reflection of his making. It’s “romance” that sparks her spiritual awakening, but I was as affected by the lines where Edna expresses the ambiguity of her ties to her children, the tumultuousness of that affair – how truly Chopin writes about the rapture of scooping up a child in affection, of missing them when they are not there but not enough to invite them readily back to interrupt you… It is not, in my mind, a book that argues against the passion of love or motherhood, but against the duty of these roles rather than their independent choice. But, that might be because I want to reconcile the choices I’ve made with the ways I identified with Edna, with the wish that we could hold all these creative, sensual urges in one surviving self.

Chopin began her professional career as a published writer, though long developing her practice in journals, after her husband’s death (and managing to pay off his many debts he’d left). She went on to publish over 100 stories. At the age of 38, she remade herself and made her name. It is some comfort to those who didn’t yet appear on that “under 35” successful writers list, right?

Pamela Knights, in the introduction of the Oxford World’s Classics edition, describes Chopin’s practiced skill at marketing, the “modestly humorous persona Chopin often adopted in public: an amateur, who spontaneously penned her tales between struggling with a dress-pattern and trying ‘a new furniture polish on an old table leg.’… She could express her divided obligations as a mother and writer, but also conceal serious professional and artistic ambitions behind a mask of womanly self-deprecation.”

Well, that sounds familiar. It’s almost too on the nose for a “mommy blogger,” a term I wholly reject for the literary magazine that MUTHA is, but also appreciate is itself strategic in the way Chopin was in using her dual status, “non-threatening” wrapping to get down the guards.

In fact as I was reading this book, and then on and off carrying it with me through the summer collecting notes, I kept losing it (not my usual losing it, but the physical copy). I found myself posting to friends, “I lost my copy of The Awakening and found it three days later under a pile of dirty laundry” and “My copy of The Awakening is soaking wet because my daughter tucked her open sippie-cup into my purse.” I brought it with me on a camping trip to a yurt and there, it got sand in it. I felt lucky the child didn’t eat it. I literally finished my notes for introducing the book at the Bryant Park summer book club while sitting in the darkened bleachers before her daycamp weekly performance, because (of course) even when you pay to put children in care during school vacation, you are expected to show up early to hear them sing. Which, I want–to hear her sing–but I also want to write about The Awakening. For the record, she called out from the audience – “MAMA, MAMA, put down your phone!”

I felt I was trying to play this part of a public intellectual and the “mother-woman” kept comically popping up, except I also have chosen this role, am privileged in it in so many ways it’s an essay all its own. I want to swim out and swim back.

Let us not overlook the problems of this text. Chopin was also a Southern writer “of her time” even as she challenged it by reflecting the diversity in the Restoration period in her scene-setting. Her earlier stories were popular as “local color” pieces; many of which to my reading are acutely racist (I refer you to more discussion in Knight’s introduction). I was struck by how The Awakening exemplifies the critique “white feminist,” in the terminology of current intersectional movement. When Edna removes herself from her husband’s house to pursue what, it must be said, is “a room of her own,” (Virginia Woolf), she may be refusing to perform domestic duties like “receiving callers,” but she conveniently brings along, and installs in a back room, Black servants to keep up her own level of comfort. The interior “struggle” of the independence of an upper-class white woman relies on the subjugation of Black women. In her summer scenes at Grand Isle, Edna’s children run rather “free range,” as we’d say in my Brooklyn parenting circles, watched over by a multiracial nanny (never given a name, “the quadroon” per Chopin). A Black child labors at the sewing machine tread, working at the feet of the Madame presiding over the resort. When Edna sacrifices herself in the ocean, she drowns off the grounds of a former plantation.

While we unpack how Edna is admonished by friends to think of her children, a memory that haunts her when she swims “where no woman had swum before,” let us also not overlook the voices in the book silenced, the children represented without the privilege of childhoods.

Featured image credit: “Working business woman” by helpsg CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

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H is for History: making the case for studying environmental law history

In our ‘time of change’ – which in the United Kingdom largely revolves around Brexit but takes different forms elsewhere – it is important for environmental lawyers to think about history. How, though, are we to do so, given that history is the most underdeveloped area of socio-legal environmental law, with very little literature to guide the way? Helen Macdonald’s celebrated book H is for Hawk is written for a general audience rather than a lawyerly one, but it contains valuable insights that account for why environmental lawyers have been indifferent to the historical side of the discipline. This blog is about these barriers.

By way of a brief introduction, Macdonald’s book is principally an autobiographical reflection on the author’s experience of training a wild goshawk (called Mabel) in the aftermath of her father’s sudden death. Its engagement with the subject historically comes through the telling of the parallel story of medieval revivalist T H White, author of The Sword in the Stone, who 80 years ago trained the hawk ‘Gos’, keeping a diary which Macdonald repeatedly references.

One of the historical challenges that the book illuminates is the almost limitless multi-disciplinary character of the study of humankind’s past relationship with the earth. Seemingly every discipline is brought to bear by the author, with a prominent role for study of ‘timeless’ laws of nature (especially geometry, but mathematics and physics more broadly) governing hawk killing of prey, alongside empirical observations and theories relevant to nature-culture of biologists, natural historians, ecologists, psychologists, and scholars of various genres of literature, arts, social sciences, and humanities. Macdonald’s display of polymathic talent is impressive, but also humbling and cautionary, in the sense that it demonstrates the hopelessness of attempting to contain environmental (and environmental law) history within manageable disciplinary boundaries or group of boundaries.

Front cover art for the book H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. Fair use via Wikimedia Commons.

A second major challenge is of a political nature, concerning the complicity of historic environmental policy, law, and practice with old and/or discredited elites. Throughout H is for Hawk the author wrestles with the juxtaposition of twenty first century liberalism and her subject’s deep associations with Europe’s ruling classes. ‘Among the cultured peoples the use and possession of the noble falcons [including goshawks] were confined to the aristocracy’ (Macdonald here quotes Captain Gilbert Blaine, writing in 1936). That was the attraction for White, and Macdonald makes frequent references to White’s ‘bad politics’ – he was a Colonel Blimp – from which the author is anxious to be distanced. A particularly memorable passage in this regard concerns Macdonald’s recollections of a visit to the Headquarters of the British Falconers Club, where she is shown a bronze statue of a hawk presented to it in 1937 by Herman Goring, Hitler’s right hand man. The statue is understandably shameful to the club today, hidden in the recesses of the cupboard.

Applied to environmental law, this sheds light on the barriers to history ‘taking off’ as a sub-discipline. Speaking for myself, H is for Hawk helps crystallise the intuitive reservations I have felt when writing about nineteenth century environmental law in Britain, with its fuzzy boundaries and its lords and ladies confidently stewarding nature from on high. The boundaries are blurred because traditional disciplinary sources of law study (in this case historic precedents and statutes) do not tell the full story of the elite power politics underpinning environmentally protective common law and statute of this period, which is disclosed by materials outside of the law library (and beyond a legal academic’s formal training for purposes of interpretation). Macdonald, to reiterate, is aware of both the large and eclectic scope of the necessary materials of study past and the elitism that much of the material is apt to suggest, but I wonder whether it is right to lament a heritage of ‘British Worthies’ guided by ‘moral certainty’ as to the bits of the environment worth protecting. How else could formally tough laws aimed at protecting nature have been as ‘robustly’ enforced in industrialising Britain?

Coming back to the importance of history to Britain’s pending exit from Europe’s supranational regime after nearly five decades of membership, it would be helpful to begin a discussion of UK policy and law in 1972, including expectations arising from the 1972 European Communities Act in relation to the environment. What was environmental law like then (including styles and modes of compliance and enforcement)? A clue is provided by memoirs of civil servant Sir Martin Holdgate, with echoes of ‘British worthies’, ‘moral certainty’, and an establishment’s confidence in business as usual:

‘Had we not been the first country in Europe to have a major environment department, headed by a member of the cabinet [Secretary of State for the Environment, Peter Walker (1970-1974)]? Had we not played a leading role in a wide range of international actions? Was not the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution [1970-2010] unique in Europe? Did we not have the oldest laws and agencies for environmental protection in the whole of the EEC?’ (Mandarins and Penguins, p 203).

Featured image credit: ‘Hawk’ by Paul Green. CC0 Public Domain via Unsplash .

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Quotes make me shudder

The practice of using punctuation to indicate verbatim speech seems to have had its origins in the diple, a caret-like ancient Greek marking used to call attention to part of a text. By the late 15th century, the diple had been replaced by a pair of inverted commas placed in the left margins to indicate quotations, and by end of the 18th century the inverted commas were being used to open and close quoted material.

Single and double quotes battled it out for a time, with double quotes emerging as the norm by the 19th century for quoted speech and single quotes for reported speech within a quote. Quote marks were also used for the titles of articles and other short works.

By the 20th century, editorial conventions for quoting were stable and quotation marks had been extended to new uses, such as signaling technical terms, identifying cited words, and to mean “so-called” (this last, a favorite of Henry James).

It’s easy to imagine how such new uses emerged. Quotes for technical terms signal to the reader that the author is introducing a concept unfamiliar to the reader. The quotes say, “I am calling something this.” The writer usually omits the quotes after the first mention (where, hopefully, the term is defined, even if just by context).

Quotes for technical terms are one form of noting unfamiliar usage. Another is citing a word as a word—the philosopher’s use-mention distinction, as in “Amy” has three letters. The function is citation, so quotes are again a natural convention. This use of quotes seems to have originated, or at least been popularized by W. V. O. Quine’s 1940 book Mathematical Logic (insofar as a book on mathematical logic can popularize anything). The practice of using quote marks around unfamiliar terms or word used as words has been somewhat supplanted by italicization, in part because software has democratized font choice.

Scare quotes are used when writers wish to distance themselves from the words they use. They are the written equivalent of the gestural air quotes. Such quotes are a typographical shudder or sneer, and shudder quotes and sneer quotes are alternate terms for them, and more descriptive as well. When used to introduce a term that a writer would normally avoid, the quotes can be a type of shudder: The “gig” economy has arrived in full-force. Or at least that’s what people call it.

When used to introduce a characterization a writer disagrees with, the quotes sneer: Management hired several “consultants” to develop the new business plan. Several so-called consultants. Sometimes the difference is tough to discern, as when someone writes: My child was “held back” in school. Is that a shudder or a sneer? And when someone writes The plan to “deconstruct” the curriculum met with resistance, is that a technical term or a sneer? Without intonation to help, scare-quoted words can be frustratingly vague.

Even more frustrating are quotes are used for emphasis. We find this in folk signage such as

“Fresh” seafood

Please keep all “valuables” with you.

Use “caution” on stairs.

“Gluten free” section

Such unnecessary quotes—there are blogs dedicated to them–are widely derided, and rightly so. How might the use have arisen? Not from irony or sneering. It is conceivable that quotes used for emphasis are an extension of the use of quotes for technical terms. People might have understood quotes around technical terms as meaning that all important words should be in quotes. But there are other possible sources for this practice as well.

Advertising may shed light on the rise of such unnecessary quotation marks in two ways. Some businesses have used quotation marks around descriptive words to distinguish them for trademark and branding purposes. A writer for the English Language & Usage Stack Exchange points out that the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company advertised and branded its bathroom fixtures as “The American Standard” and the Chelsea Milling Company produces “Jiffy” muffin mixes. Perhaps quotes as trade decoration were transferred to quotes as emphasis.

A librarian writing for Otherstream Media has also suggested unnecessary quotation marks seem particularly prevalent in classic Yellow Pages advertising, where ad templates provided to businesses by telephone books used quotes around phrases like “Where to Find Them” and “Where to Call.” Yellow Page style may have legitimized and extended quotes as a stylistic option in other advertising.

That last instance of the word legitimized should probably have quotes around it. Shudder.

Featured image: “Shuddered” by Jim Lukach. CC by 2.0 via Flickr .

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Lovely LISA

One of the amazing ideas to emerge from Einstein’s theory of general relativity was the possibility of gravitational waves rippling their way across the cosmos. It took a century to verify this prediction. Their existence was finally confirmed by LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) in September 2015.

What’s in a name?

LIGO has so far detected three gravitational wave signals, all of which are due to black hole mergers in the distant universe. The image below shows an artist’s impression of the system that produced the third of these signals, detected on 4 January 2017. The black holes were 32 and 19 times the mass of the sun and were spinning in different planes, as depicted in the illustration which shows them just before their merger. The signal has been named GW170104. Guess why?

Artist’s impression of a close binary black hole sytem based on GW170104. Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet).

Lovely LISA

The detection of gravitational waves by LIGO was an incredible technological achievement. The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning to go one better by putting a gravitational wave detector in space scheduled for launch in 2034 as part of ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme. It is known as LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna). There will be three spacecraft orbiting the sun in a triangular formation, consisting of a mother and two daughter craft each separated by a distance of 2.5 million kilometres. They will form a precision interferometer with lasers monitoring the distances between the mother and daughter craft. A passing gravitational wave will change these distances very slightly and this will be detected by the interferometer.

Paving the way for LISA

Schematic representation of LISA by NASA. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The LISA Pathfinder mission was launched in December 2015 as a stepping stone to the LISA mission. It was devised to test the technology that will be used in LISA and demonstrate the feasibility of constructing an interferometer in space. The goal was to show that test masses can be shielded from any stray internal and external forces and maintained in a state of almost perfect free-fall. Remarkably, the spacecraft avoids any contact with the test masses contained within its structure by sensing their motion and adjusting its own position using micro-thrusters to compensate. This is essential if the sensitivity of the interferometer is not to be destroyed by inevitable perturbations that the spacecraft will suffer. These arise from a number of sources including stray gas molecules within the craft, the solar wind, and micro-meteoroid impacts.

ESA announced in June this year that the technology trialed by LISA Pathfinder has performed beyond expectations, which means it will certainly be sensitive enough to detect gravitational waves when deployed by the LISA mission.

What will we see?

LISA will greatly enhance our ability to study gravitational waves. It will detect signals invisible to LIGO and other ground based gravitational wave detectors, as it will be sensitive to gravitational waves with much longer wavelengths that are produced by much larger systems. Although the black holes that merged during the GW170104 event were very massive they were only 190 and 115 kilometres in diameter, with the merged black hole around 280 kilometres in diameter. These are very small objects by cosmic standards.

LISA will detect gravitational wave signals emanating from tightly bound binary systems containing two compact objects that may be white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes orbiting each other prior to their merger. For instance, a binary black hole system such as GW170104 would be detected weeks or even months before the merger event. This will enable the position of the binary system to be located in the sky and the time of merger to be accurately predicted, which will greatly aid in visual identification of the merger event.

Supermassive black holes

There is a supermassive black hole of four million solar masses at the centre of our galaxy. Most, if not all, galaxies are thought to harbour a monster such as this within their core. LISA will be able to detect these beasts devouring nearby stars. It will also detect mergers of supermassive black holes. Such extremely violent and spectacular events must occasionally happen somewhere in the universe. We can look forward to finding out much more about them.

The creation and early growth of supermassive black holes is still not well understood. LISA should detect their birth pangs and provide important clues to how they formed and their relationship to quasars in the early universe. LISA will also help to improve models of the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang and the very early universe. As an important bonus, LISA will add to our knowledge of fundamental physics by providing stringent new tests for general relativity.

A version of this post originally appeared on Quantum Waves Publishing.

Featured image credit: Astronomy by Pexels. Public domain via Pixabay . 

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Understanding Puerto Rico’s Commonwealth status [excerpt]

Acquired by the United States from Spain in 1898, Puerto Rico has a peculiar status among Latin American and Caribbean countries. In the excerpt below, author Jorge Duany provides the necessary background for understanding the inner workings of the Commonwealth government and the island’s relationship to the United States.

How did Puerto Rico become a US Commonwealth?

In 1950, the US Congress passed, and President Harry S. Truman signed, Public Law 600, authorizing a convention to draft a constitution and establish a republican form of government in Puerto Rico. In a referendum held on 3 March 1952, 81.9 percent of the Island’s electorate ratified the Commonwealth or Free Associated State (Estado Libre Asociado, in Spanish). The US Congress approved the constitution (after requiring several changes, especially in its bill of rights) on 3 July of that same year; Puerto Rico’s Constitutional Convention approved it seven days later, and the new Commonwealth status was proclaimed on 25 July 1952. The next year, the United Nations removed Puerto Rico from its list of non- self- governing territories. Officially, the Island was no longer considered a US colony.

The brainchild of Luis Muñoz Marín and the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), Commonwealth was originally supposed to be a transitory, intermediate status between full independence and annexation as a state of the American union. Under this arrangement, the Island’s electorate selects its own government, and its representatives pass its own laws. Puerto Rico’s elected governor appoints all cabinet officials and other key members of the executive branch; the insular legislature determines the government’s budget; and the judicial system amends its civil and criminal code, without federal interference—as long as such measures do not contradict the US Constitution, laws, and regulations. Commonwealth status represented a greater degree of political autonomy for Puerto Rico in local matters, such as elections, taxation, economic development, education, health, housing, culture, and language. However, the US federal government remained in control of most state affairs, including citizenship, immigration, customs, defense, currency, transportation, communications, foreign trade, and diplomacy.

To what extent did Commonwealth status recognize the sovereignty of the Puerto Rican people?

The Commonwealth formula did not substantially alter the Island’s legal, political, and economic dependence on the United States. All of the regulations and articles of the federal laws that ruled relations between Puerto Rico and the United States since the 1898 Treaty of Paris remained intact. Such laws and regulations still apply to the people of Puerto Rico without their consent or control. The subordinate citizenship status of Puerto Ricans continued under Commonwealth as well. Other basic elements of US-Puerto Rico relations established before 1952 include the adoption of the US dollar as the Island’s currency, US customs control, US citizenship, federal labor legislation, welfare benefits, and an elected governor.

Under Commonwealth status, Puerto Rico continued to be an “unincorporated territory” that “belonged to but was not a part of the United States.” The US Congress and president could unilaterally dictate policy relating to defense, international relations, foreign trade, and investment. Congress could also revoke any insular law inconsistent with the US Constitution. Moreover, Congress or the president could apply federal regulations selectively to Puerto Rico, resulting in both concessions and revocations of special privileges. In addition, many US constitutional provisions—such as the requirement of indictment by grand jury, trial by jury in common law cases, and the right to confrontation of witnesses—were not extended to the Commonwealth.

US authorities and Commonwealth sympathizers have long argued that the Puerto Rican people exercised their right to self-determination.

According to Commonwealth advocates, Puerto Rico entered into a solemn “compact among equals” with the United States in 1952. US authorities and Commonwealth sympathizers have long argued that the Puerto Rican people exercised their right to self-determination. Commonwealth advocates believe that this formula can be renegotiated to correct its flaws and attain greater autonomy. However, the nature of the “compact” between Puerto Rico and the United States has been disputed from its inception. Pro-statehood and pro-independence critics contend that Commonwealth is a colonial status because of the lack of effective representation and unrestricted congressional and executive power over Puerto Rico. In recent years, the US federal government has increasingly weakened the Commonwealth’s fiscal autonomy, in the wake of financial crisis. Hence, both the political and economic bases of the Estado Libre Asociado have wavered.

In what sense is Puerto Rico a nation?

Puerto Rico meets most of the objective and subjective criteria of conventional views of the nation—among them a shared territory, language, and history, except for sovereignty. The Island possesses many of the symbolic attributes of modern nations, including a national flag and anthem; national heroes and rituals; a national system of universities, museums, and other cultural institutions; a well-developed national tradition in literature and the visual arts; and national representation in international sports and beauty contests. For decades, the Island’s intellectual elite has striven to define a national identity based on defending the Spanish language, the Hispanic heritage, and other popular customs. Most important, the vast majority of Puerto Ricans imagine themselves as distinct from Americans as well as from other Latin American and Caribbean peoples. In a 2002 poll, 60 percent of those interviewed on the Island identified Puerto Rico as their nation; about 17 percent considered both Puerto Rico and the United States to be their nation; and only 20 percent chose the United States alone.

However, most of the Island’s electorate does not currently support the creation of a sovereign state in Puerto Rico. Rather, Puerto Rican voters have reiterated an overwhelming preference for US citizenship and permanent union with the United States. A key issue is the freedom to travel to the United States under any political status option. Under the Commonwealth, Puerto Ricans have unrestricted entry into the US mainland. They would retain that right under statehood but probably lose it after independence.

Featured image credit: “Flags” by MariamS. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

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